Hello, dear readers! Your uncle Rangarajan this side of the digital divide. Normally I wouldn’t hesitate to offer you my jasmine-scented greetings but what to do? The omnipotent Balaji knows I am helpless. Inflation is crushing not only the middle-class but even jasmine flowers, it seems. Just today, during my evening stopover at the Maalai mandir near RK Puram, I discovered to my horror that jasmine flower prices have shot up like your aunty Vaijanthi’s BP during Arnab’s Super duper Primetime. Jasmine is the new onion, dear readers! So if you don’t mind, please make do with drumstick-scented greetings. In any case, the horror that I am going to describe to you today, believe you me only the pungent drumstick scent can do justice to it.

 It all happened like this. Last Thursday my boss, the hon’ble Minister of Culture Smt Chandresh Kumari called me into her office. I removed my monkey cap, raked my hair quickly, and rushed over to knock at her door.

“Come in!” rang a voice from inside.

I entered. To my surprise I didn’t find Ms Kumari flapping shut Men’s Health as is always the case. Instead, I found a healthy man reclining on the sofa opposite her table and partaking in a slow and measured laugh. Quite sinister it was, too, now that I am reminded of it.

“Hah-hah-hah-haoou. You Rajputs are a funny lot, you are”, he said to boss, then turned his attention towards me.

“Hello, and what specimen of our ridiculous nation’s ethnic diversity do we have here?”, he said, looking straight at me while at the same time unbuttoning the first of his shirt buttons.

“Oh, come off it, Aakar”, cut in Ms Kumari. “Now don’t be rough on Ranga. He’s a real darling, he is.”

“Is he now?”, asked this man Aakar in a baritone voice that seemed to have been honed through years of paan and kaththa chewing. As though he had read my mind, Mr Patel dragged close a brass spittoon, fashioned a V with his middle and index fingers, and ejected the contents of his mouth via a neat parabola. He reclined to his earlier position after this, running his tongue all inside his mouth like a satisfied animal. I guess he was trying to dislodge a leftover supari from in-between his teeth.

Lord Ayappa, I thought anxiously, now what have you in store for me, my deity?

“Rangrajan”, said boss. “Meet Aakar Patel, our party’s finest columnist.”

I smiled at Mr Patel and strode forward to shake his hand. He didn’t flinch a single muscle of his reclining body. I had to withdraw my hand in embarrassment.

“Rangarajan…hmm…Namboodri?”

“No, sir.”

“Iyengar, then?”

I shook my head.

“Then? Iyer?”

I nodded.

“You Madrasis are always either shaking your head or bloody nodding it. Which one is it?”, he asked a little upset.

“Nodding – I mean, yes sir, I’m an Iyer.”

“Good. I am on the fence as far as you fellows are concerned. You are the wily little rasam-guzzling, curd rice-gobbling, Godrej almirah-loving, penny-pinching, simple-living, simple-thinking, JEE-cracking, Vedic-chanting, middle-class turncoats, aren’t you?”

“Stop it, Akku!”, cried boss with a hint of a giggle.

“Come, come”, said Mr Patel to me, “Come, sit. Do you know who I am?”

“Er…Mr. Aakar Patel…?” I answered a little unsure.

“Yes, second-ranked Brahmin, you got that right. I am Aakar Patel, the chronicler of India, the Ibn Battuta, the Naipaul, the Marco Polo, the Chatwin, the Herodotus, the Jerry Springer, the Pico Iyer, the-, no, not Pico Iyer – he’s too soft – he has to be – Iyer, you see…anyway, where was I?”

At that moment, Mr. Patel came off the sofa backrest and bowed a little as though he wanted to pick something from the floor. He didn’t – it was just another posture. I was transfixed by the golden locket that dangled from his neck and swung to and fro like a pendulum, now into the thicket of his chest-hair, now out of it.

“Go, on”, he said invitingly, “Hold it in your hand and click it open.”

I looked at boss. She smiled and nodded as if this was a very normal thing to transpire between two men who had just met for the first time. I stretched my trembling hand and grabbed the locket.

“Open it, O Brahmin,” commanded Mr Patel.

I clicked it open.

“What do you see?” he asked with a smile.

“S-sir”, I answered hesitantly. “A duotone photo of Lord Manu.”

“Just that?”

“Er, no, sir. Lord Manu seems to be posing along with members of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.”

“Who all can you spot?” asked Mr. Patel.

“Madam Sonia-ji…Rahul-ji…Vadra-ji…and…sorry, sir, the one on the extreme left is difficult to decipher…is it by any chance Ms Ambika Soni…?”

“That’s Ahmed Patel.”

“Oh. Right, sir.”

“…Anything else you noticed, Rangarajan?”

“Er, yes, sir. Lord Manu is clutching a hefty book in his left hand.”

“It isn’t any book, Rangarajan”, said Mr Patel clucking his tongue. “It is Manusmriti, my meek Brahmin.”

“Yes, sir.” I said letting go of the locket that at once found shelter in the chest nest.

“Anyway, now you know what guides me. Now you know where I get my inspiration from. You know, na?”

“Er…I do, sir…from the Manu-Maino dynasty…?”

“Hah-hah-hah-haoou. I like that”, remarked Mr Patel, “The normally insipid Brahmin is showing some initiative. I like that. By the way, I am from the Patidar community of Patels, the dominant peasant caste of Gujarat. In case you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t, sir”, I said.

“What is your gothram, by the way?”

“Er…gothram, sir?”

“Enough, Aakar”, cried Ms. Kumari, “Enough of chit-chat. Now let’s get down to business.”

“Alright, alright”, said Mr Patel, collapsing back on the sofa rolling his eyes. He was visibly disappointed at not being allowed to gather my gothram information.

“Rangrajan”, said boss, “We need to help Aakar. You need to help Aakar.”

“Anything, madam”, I said.

“Now you might not know this but the government is gathering data on the caste composition of our business houses. We feel if we can crack the corporate caste code, we’ll be in a position to dictate strict policy adherence. This will allow us to-”

“ACC!” cried Mr. Patel all of a sudden, “ACC is run by a Bania – NS Sekhsaria; BHEL is run by a Brahmin – WVK Krishna Shankar; Bharti Airtel is run by a Bania – Sunil Mittal; Grasim and Hindalco are run by a Bania – Kumar Mangalam Birla; HDFC is run by a Bania –Deepak Parekh; Hindustan Unilever is run by a Brahmin – Nitin Paranjpe; ICICI Bank is headed by a Brahmin – KV Kamath; Jaiprakash Associates is run by a Brahmin – Yogesh Gaur; L&T is run by a Brahmin – AM Naik; NTPC is run by a Brahmin – AR Choudhury; Reliance group firms are run by Banias – Mukesh and Anil Ambani; State Bank of India is run by a Brahmin – Arundhati Bhattacharya; Sterlite Industries is run by a Bania – Anil Agarwal; Sun Pharma is run by a Bania – Dilip Shanghvi; Tata Steel is run by a Brahmin – B. Muthuraman; Punjab National Bank is run by a Brahmin – KR Kamath; and Canara Bank is run by a Brahmin – Rajiv Kishore Dubey. Media is entirely controlled by Banias and Jains. The Brahmin used his monopoly on knowledge and the Bania used his high-trust culture of trade to become dominant…”

Mr Patel paused for a breath, and then looking up, whispered: “Understood?”

By the vengeance of Lambodar! What was this? Who was this man? What was he saying? Well, whatever he was saying he hadn’t finished saying.

“India’s richest man”, said Mr Patel after a deep intake of air, “is a Baniya – Mukesh Ambani, $21 billion; India’s second richest man is a Baniya – Lakshmi Mittal, $16 billion; India’s third richest man is a Baniya – Dilip Shanghvi, $13.9 billion; India’s fourth richest man is a Khoja – Azim Premji, $13.8 billion; India’s fifth richest man is a Parsi – Pallonji Mistry, $12.5 billion; India’s sixth richest men are Baniyas – Hinduja Brothers, $9 billion; India’s seventh richest man is a Baniya – Shiv Nadar, $8.6 billion; India’s eighth richest man is a is a Parsi – Adi Godrej, $8.3 billion; India’s ninth richest man is a Baniya – Kumar Mangalam Birla, $7.6 billion; India’s tenth richest man is a Baniya – Sunil Mittal, $6.6 billion. Score: Baniyas 7, Rest of India 3. If we consider the Gujaratis Godrej and Premji – from the Lohana caste – as coming from mercantile communities then actually Rest of India wasn’t playing this match so far. Hah-hah-hah-haoou.”

Dear readers, I was like a south Indian rabbit caught in front of headlights with his veshti down. I couldn’t even part or depart my lips. What was happening here? Was this gentleman some kind of holy seer of caste and creed?

Meanwhile, Ms Kumari sprung from her seat clapping excitedly. “Bravo, bravo! You see, Rangrajan?” she cried, “You see now? This man is a walking caste computer! Quite amazing, how he does it. I’m sure it’s to do with the duacore chip embedded in his brain: Intellectual inside. Have you ever – I mean ever – met a person like him?”

“I haven’t madam”, I said.

Boss continued while Mr Patel sipped Red Bull. “Rangrajan, here’s where you need to come in. The corporate caste info that Akku just uttered was but a tiny glimpse of the terabits of caste data that his brain contains. It will be your job to take all of it down on paper. Meticulously and without a single error. We don’t want any caste confusion – calling Mukesh a Khoja and Premji a Brahmin, that sort of thing. You get me?”

Oh dear, dear lord! Oh my bountiful multi-limbed Lambodar! What had I done in my previous life to deserve this? This was going to be the kind of torture those Spanish inquisitive rascals would have been proud of. To have to take down thousands and thousands of corporate castes – and that too while keeping pace with this walking caste computer – was like being hit on the head with a Malcolm Marshall beamer 8 times in an over with two no-balls thrown in like dhania-mirchi. Oh, my lord, oh my-”

“Rangrajan!” said boss, “Are you day-dreaming again?”

“No-no”, I lied, “Er…I will try my best in this caste endeavour, madam.”

“Excellent! We knew you’re the one. You will do splendidly. Won’t he, Aakar?”

But Mr Patel was in another world. He was snoring open-mouthed. All that caste narration must have heated up his motherboard, I guess.

“Oh, look at him!” said boss, her eyes gleaming with love and affection, “Such a dear, he is. Well, ahem, anyway, Rangrajan, you need to get on this straight away. That Vadra photo-shopping project you are working on – I’ll put Luthra on it, alright? Dismissed.”

For three days and three nights, dear readers, your uncle worked tirelessly, typing what the caste computer was spewing from his mouth, his ears and his eyes. By the end of it all, I had forgotten how to eat even thair sadam with my fingers now that they resembled shrivelled drumsticks. Oh my dear lord Ayappa, had it not been for you and your regular presence in my life, I don’t know where I would be!

And when I was asked to see off Mr Aakar Patel at the airport after these miserable three days, all he said to me before he went to answer the call of boarding was: “Rangarajan, my dear Brahmin, I want you to know that, were something to happen to me – an attempt on my life by a commenter or a comment moderator, for example – I leave this world in peace for I have now bequeathed to you all my wisdom. Use it wisely. Use it well.”

Use it well I certainly will, aiyoo rascalla! As my revenge, I now upload Mr Aakar Patel’s doodle that he drew while attending PM’s editor’s meet. Here it is:

There you have it, dear readers, an end to the kind of adventure I wish no Patidar or Brahmin or Baniya or Lohana or Kurmi ever undertakes. I achieved in three days what the Census manages in 10 years. I hope this never gets out or the census walas will simply come to my humble abode in 2021 in order to complete their survey. O magnificent Balaji, I pray to you, please whisk me away from Mother Earth before that ever happens. Send them to Mr Patel’s home instead. He’ll only be too glad.